Abstract

The Bestiary of the Duke of Saint-Simon. “Humanimal Sociality“ at the Royal Court of France around 1700

The memoirs of Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon (1675–1755), are among the most studied sources on French court life under King Louis XIV. Historians have, however, largely overlooked the presence of animals in the “Mémoires“. Based on the empirical example of Saint-Simon’s account, the article aims at broadening our understanding of the early modern “court society“ (Norbert Elias) as a social figuration of interacting animate beings. While equine competences had had a decisive role in the courtly career of Saint-Simon’s father, the author of the memoirs confined himself largely to the role of an observer who documented the interactions at court that involved animals. In the duke’s critical view, the hunting practices of the king stood for his arbitrary, luxurious system of power, whereas the exchange of animal gifts between members of the court elite revealed patronage ties. Furthermore, Saint-Simons’ detailed descriptions of characters compared other courtiers with cats, monkeys, or snipes, invoking such imagery to allude to their behaviour or alleged physiognomic similarities. The zoomorphization of court life in the memoirs is a reflection of a world view according to which an animal side was inherent to the nature of all men – even the “man of the court“. Simultaneously, however, it also chronicles the co-presence of thousands of living animals of various species in and around the Château de Versailles.